With Ford not having yet released the break-out of its C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid sales for the month, Toyota is in the lead for plug-in vehicle sales from the major automakers in November in the US, posting 1,766 units of the Prius PHV plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. From January through November, Toyota has sold 11,389 units of the Prius PHV in the US.

For November, the Nissan LEAF edged past GM’s Volt, posting 1,539 units (up 129% from November 2011) to the Volt’s 1,519 (up 33.4% from November 2011). January-November sales of the LEAF are 8,330, down 4.5% from 8,720 for the same period last year. January-November sales of the Volt are 20,828 units, up 239.1% from 6,142 units for the same period last year.

Toyota. Overall, Toyota sold 16,505 units of the entire Prius family in November, an 8.5% increase year-on-year. Of those, 8,925 were the Prius Sedan (54%); 2,690 were the Prius V (16.3%); and 3,124 (18.9%) were the Prius C. Prius PHV sales accounted for 10.7% of the total.

Toyota posted total November hybrid vehicle sales of 24,682—up 28.7% compared to the same period last year. The Toyota Division posted November sales of 20,958 hybrids, while Lexus Division reported sales of 3,724 hybrids for the month.

Total Toyota sales for November 2012 were 161,695 units, an increase of 17.2% compared to the same period last year on both a daily selling rate (DSR) and a raw volume basis.

Nissan. Total Nissan sales in November set a record for the month, with 96,197 units versus 85,182 units a year earlier, up 12.9%. Nissan Division set a new November record, with sales up 9.8% for the month over the prior year at 84,300 units. Sales of Infiniti vehicles were 11,897, up 41.2% over the prior year, also a November record.

GM. General Motors Co. reported its highest total November sales in the US since 2007, with deliveries up 3% versus a year ago to 186,505 vehicles. Year-over-year sales to retail customers were essentially equal to a year ago and sales to fleet customers were up 16%.

Ford. On Monday, Ford announced total C-MAX sales (hybrid and plug-in hybrid models combined) of 4,848 units; the break-out between conventional hybrid and plug-in hybrid sales, or the number of Focus Electric sales, are not yet available. The C-MAX Hybrid lineup gained 52% versus October, when the C-MAX Energi pug-in hybrid went on sale.

Overall, Ford reported total November sales of 177,673 vehicles—up 6% versus last year, with retail sales up 12%.

Honda. Honda placed 26 units of the Fit-EV in November, bringing the total for the year to 74 units.

Overall, American Honda reported a record for the month of November, with November 2012 US sales of 116,580 units, an increase of 38.9% compared with November 2011. The Honda Division posted November 2012 sales of 104,334 units, an increase of 41.0% compared with November 2011. Acura US November sales of 12,246 units represents an increase of 23.6% over November 2011.

The problem may be with the disappearing/shrinking USA's (and EU's) manufacturing sector. The current USA manufacturing activity level has dropped another 2.4% to 48.3% instead of the forecast 51.2%.

All manufacturing, including Big-3 activities, are affected. To maximize profit, outsourcing is still very active with the exception of pollution going down or being transferred to China.

Can USA and EU maintain their high living standards without a very strong or with a diminishing manufacturing sector? It is currently being done by going deeper and deeper in debt. What will happen when the debt has reached unsustainable levels? Will we go through the same hardship as Greece, Spain, Portugal etc?

Another short term solution used by USA and EU is selling out accumulated real estates at the rate of a few $T/year. This can only last another 10 to 15 years before most valued properties are sold.

Volt sales estimates were too high to begin with, they projected 60,000 units sold in the second year. That might be the case in a booming economy, but not now, the price of $40,000 restricts sales also. If the governments did a rebate $10,000 up front the sales might improve, but just a bit.

We might want to consider the prolonged attack on GM and their Volt by the right-wing press. The amount of anti-GM, anti-Volt writing has been enormous. Just a couple days ago I saw a piece about Volts catching on fire and burning their drivers to a crisp.

The right wing has promulgated tons of "false facts" about GM and the auto bailout, some of which we see on this forum regularly. That has created an anti-GM atmosphere in which traditionally "Buy American" folks have turned against an American car company.

Toyota hasn't suffered these sorts of attacks. They had already built a very good reputation with their Prius and products in general. Adding a charge cord to the existing Prius was more of a small evolutionary step than GM's big leap.

I wouldn't be surprised if GM also suffers from some bad feelings from some of those on the left. The US car companies have generally been enemies of their employees. And Detroit has not produced the fuel deficient cars that more environmentally conscious people wanted. Toyota has earned a reputation for quality and efficiency while GM is a newcomer in this category.

I guess one could look at it that way if they chose to not look too far.

GM failed (as did Chrysler and Ford almost joined them) because our financial industry was under regulated which created the housing market bubble and let lending institutions operate without adequate ability to suffer a housing price downturn.

Thousands and thousands of American businesses went bankrupt, not because of anything they had done, but because a small number of very greedy people were allowed to throw us into a very deep recession. Millions of people lost their incomes and millions more became afraid to make major purchases even if they had a decent income. People quit buying cars.

GM did not screw you. You and GM got screwed by the big banks and financial institutions. You and GM got screwed by Zombie Reagan and "We don't need no stinkin' regulation".

No the fact was the debters were supposed to get paid first as a part of the deal that gave gm better interest rates on the debt.. I wasnt involved at all because frankly I didnt trust any of em and also I dont have any wealthy whatsoever to invest;/

But BOY did I hear about it from others older then me who did get shafted. Gm wont find it easy to get debt ever again thats for sure.

You dont get it gm only got the rate it did on that debt because it was supposed to be far less risky because it was supposed to be first in line for being paid off in case things went bad. Because of this screwup on gms part the next time they go into debt will most likely be thier last.

I didnt care enough about it at the time to save links. Oh and its not that they cant sell the bonds its that they will never again be able to sell that type as it depends on a garrantee they now wont be trusted to keep.. So debt will be ALOT more expensive next time.. likely too expensive.

Ok this is ODD a site I go to that never has anything even remotely like this type of info says that in fact the bailout deal for gm is in real danger of being reversed and that that could cause gm to go into bankruptcy. The odd thing is its a site I go to to watch idiots get hurt.. liveleak.... if there is any trueth to this ... yikes. Alot worse then I expected.

Were Banks, Real Estates, Insurances, GM++, many million investors, home owners, unemployed workers etc victims of smart speculators or the 3%? Who really benefited the most with the transfer of a few $T and many properties from A to B during the last 4+ years?

Will the coming Debt Bubble burst do even more damages or can it be corrected and stopped? If nothing is done, the 97% will soon owe more than their collective worth and will technically be in a bankrupt situation. It could become a huge Class Action for smart lawyers.

"the bailout deal for gm is in real danger of being reversed and that that could cause gm to go into bankruptcy"

How might that happen? The US government can't demand that GM buy back the stock that the government holds any more than any of us can make any company buy back our stock.

The only thing we can do is to offer to sell our stock back at such a cheap rate that the company would make out like a bandit if they did buy.

There are no loans to GM on which the government could demand immediate payoff. And while checking to see if that was correct look what I found.

"... there’s only one Detroit automaker still in hock to U.S. taxpayers and – guess what? – it’s not GM or Chrysler.

Ford Motor owes the government $5.9 billion it borrowed in June 2009, the same month GM filed for bankruptcy

...

Indeed, lest we forget: the feds in 2009 were handing out fistfuls of cash to bolster the auto industry, beyond the $64 billion used to bail out GM and Chrysler.

...

No company was a bigger beneficiary of the DOE’s green car funding initiative than Ford. It received two-thirds of the $8.8 billion loaned under the department’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

...

GM: repaid $23.1 billion of the $49.5 billion it got from the U.S. Treasury, including all of its outstanding loans. But Treasury still owns 500 million shares, or 32%, of GM stock. To recoup its full investment, GM stock needs to hit $52.80 per share. It’s currently trading around $21."

GM stock is now trading for $25.01. And this is an article from conservative Forbes.

I just read this this morning and find it most interesting. It's something that Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren said in an interview...

"Coming out of the Great Depression to basically late ‘70s, early 1980s, just almost every piece of legislation that passed through Congress was through the filter of: Does it strengthen the middle class? Does it create more opportunities for working families? And that was the litmus test.

That switches in the early ‘80s, when the Republican party says the role of government is to protect those who've already made it, let them keep more of the money, let them keep more power.

And so we tried that for 30 years and ended up with an economy that almost ran over a cliff and crashed into the stone age….

No bob what happened was reagan let loose money locked away to keep it safe from taxes... but at the same time others made it so far too much of that money left america because too few wanted to invest here. On top of this local govs wanted more and more taxes so they helped push property values waaaay to far.. to double down on that messup a generation stupidly ate up all the cheap housing and converted it into higher and higher income housing until the entire thing fell apart.

A massive set of industies set up to cater to this group of mighty morons then went belly up when they did.

And because the banks were forced to invest in this stupidity against thier wishes in many cases... splatto big time.

The moron generation caused it.. both the right and left just fed off them as such people always do.